I debated for weeks before starting my business vending cotton candy and popcorn.
Seriously, I must have sounded like a nervous wreck. Constantly switching between I must do it and I definitely shouldn’t do it.
But as I continued thinking, most of the things that I were scared about weren’t actually that scary.
In this article, I’d like to cover 5 big issues I had worked through before ordering all of my equipment. Maybe they can help you too!
1. Money Investment
This, of course, is the big one.
Truthfully, you can start a cotton candy business really cheap – even a solid commercial machine will only run you about $400, and you can get by with another $100 or so of materials if you really needed to.
However, I wanted to jump straight into the big leagues right away – AND I was wanting to do popcorn at the same time.
This means for me, my total investment was going to come out to over $7,000. I had the money, and it was just going to be sitting in a stock market fund anyway, so the situation wasn’t as dire.
It still made me nervous – and it’s probably the #1 thing new vendors worry about.
But look at it this way
How I Overcame It
There are two big reasons why the investment isn’t really as risky as it sounds.
First things first, you can always resell a lot of your equipment. In my case, I have 2 cotton candy machines, a high quality popcorn machine, and a generator that was $1,000 alone. Between all of my purchases, I could quite easily recoup $4,000 pretty fast, if I decided this business were no longer for me.
That brings the true risk down to like $3,000 – assuming I never sell a single bag of cotton candy OR popcorn.
And that’s the thing – these are some of the easiest products in the world to sell.
You don’t need to be good at marketing. You don’t need to be a natural salesperson. You don’t need to build a brand, or create content (though it certainly helps.)
The reality is that if you are simply in front of people at an event and it’s obvious what you’re selling, people will approach you to buy it.
With all the materials and the packaging, a bag of cotton candy can be made for under 50 cents. You can sell that same bag for $6 or more. And at popular events, you can have a line ready to give you this money.
It’s quite possible you pay back your investment from your very first event.
2. Scam Sellers
I started vending with a short deadline – I made the purchase only about 1 month before the biggest event of the year.
When you move into the world of B2B buying, you probably aren’t going to be shopping on Amazon anymore. I had to put faith into websites I’d never heard of before, like Katom, WebstaurantStore, and PopcornSupply.com
These sites, while I now know are completely trustworthy, don’t have the credibility or the customer-success focus that Amazon has. Many of them have no return policies at all.
So I wondered… was my stuff going to get here on time? Would it be broken? Will I get the right items? Will the store even ship anything at all?
How I Overcame It
$7,000 was already pushing my comfortable budget. Many of the same items were available on Amazon, but at much higher prices.
Eventually I just decided to order, knowing that if I were completely scammed then I’d just file a chargeback and rush to order from a different company.
I’m happy to share that so far I’ve had nothing but good experiences with every store that I’ve ordered from.
Tip: Sometimes orders do go wrong, so give yourself enough time to order something twice when you need items by a certain date.
3. Permits, Fees, Commercial Kitchens, And More!
This was another really scary one – and it’s hard to find answers for, because the laws are different from place to place.
To legally run a business vending food, you’ll need to get a permit from your local government. In fact, you may need one filled out and accepted for every single event that you go to.
In most places, you’ll also need to submit sales tax at the end of every quarter. You’ll also need to do basic bookkeeping to track your business expenses, when it comes to tax time.
If you prepackage your cotton candy and don’t make it live at events, my department required it be made in a licensed commercial kitchen, which required the kitchen manager to sign off on it. And when something is premade, you also have to have labels on the packaging with your ingredient list and business address.
How I Overcame It
It turns out, my local health department aren’t enemies. They aren’t looking for reasons to turn you down. They WANT you to succeed.
I have a permanent commissionary agreement with the commercial kitchen I use, so that doesn’t need to be filled out anymore.
Doing a new event is simply changing out the contact information and event address on the form I send in – the rest of it stays exactly the same.
Tip: Since cotton candy and popcorn are such low-risk foods, you may be able to get an exemption from paying any fees. You may still need to fill out a form for each event, though.
4. Too Low Of A Ceiling
Even if everything were perfect, I still spent a ton of time worrying that there just wasn’t enough money to be made to be worth my time.
That sounds pompous, I know – but I’m already running another successful, growing business that makes orders of magnitude more.
After all… given my situation, would an extra $1-2k a month really make a big enough difference in my life to be worth the mental energy?
How I Overcame It
This required me to change my approach and start envisioning a bigger future.
Sure, maybe at my local vendor events, I’d be capped at $1-2k a month. That’s enough to start a retirement plan for my twin daughters and my nieces, or save a chunk of it for a vacation with them every year.
Or, maybe I take this cotton candy thing farther. Maybe I start pushing wholesale orders and getting them into stores. Maybe I start selling online. Maybe I start seeing the potential vending has to offer, and move to a city where there are more frequent events.
In terms of dollars per hour, cotton candy is an incredible business, even if the absolute amount is capped. But if you really start taking it seriously, there’s no reason it can’t replace your job, especially if you’re willing to branch out to something like popcorn later.
I’m now thinking in phases. Phase 1, start out vending. Phase 2, develop our own unique flavors. Phase 3, use local events to promote our online store. And phase 4, figure out what I need to do to get even a small number of shops carrying it.
After looking at all the options (and talking with professional cotton candy sellers), my eyes have been opened – I see 100k a year as very realistic possibility in the future.
5. Vending From A Small Town
This one kinda ties into the last one, but I live in a very rural area. In fact, the whole area I’m willing to drive to only has about 10,000 people.
That is… not a lot. And it made me wonder if I could make serious money, even if I did everything right.
How I Overcame It
I actually think living in a small town might be a benefit to me now – especially as I’m the only cotton candy and popcorn vendor around.
One thing I’m going to try once Farmer’s Market season pops up is rotating flavors. Every week, I’ll do 2 new flavors that you can only get that week, and once they’re gone, they’re gone for the season.
I’m hoping this gets people who are already nearby, visiting my booth more often just out of curiosity – and buying those special flavors in fear of missing out.
In a small town, you’ve also got to factor in the private event revenue.
Even at a population of 10,000, that’s still 27 people having a birthday each day. If 1% of people in your market wanted to hire you for an event, that’s 100 events a year even in a rural area like mine. At $300 a pop? That’s $30,000.
Not to mention, I’m hoping to get in with things like our local schools, sports competitions and other town-led events to see if we could make some deal there, too.
It’s rare to find a business with such low startup costs, and such immediate revenue potential.
I’m excited to see how these ideas turn out!
Conclusion
If there is any part of you that gets excited by the idea of selling cotton candy, I’d definitely encourage you to give it a shot.
With the world craving human connection more than ever, businesses like these ones are going to thrive for a very long time.
So, what are you waiting for? If you’re still anxious about something, ask me in the comments below. I’ll be happy to help!
~ James McAllister